


Look to the Thunder

by Pohadka



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pohadka/pseuds/Pohadka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after?  When time passes and the world and universe move on, how will those who are left go on?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look to the Thunder

They always looked forward to the thunder. Not the low rumbling kind that crawls across the land with it’s heavy rain clouds, but the kind that reminded them of when they were young and innocent still, the kind that came out of nowhere to shatter the peace of a blue sky.  


Natasha remembered when it would set off car alarms with the strength of the sonic disruptions. It was a favorite game to see people racing through the sudden rain to shut off the noise and roll up car windows. Now personal vehicles self automated such menial tasks. However, those on air foils did shiver and slide sideways a little. One of the earlier models would slide all the way to the nearest door before geolocking again. That memory, of people climbing awkwardly over the vehicle to leave the building, never failed to make her smile.  


Sometimes for Bruce, it was a bittersweet sound. Before he learned to control his anger, to control the Other Guy, the sound of thunder would bring him back to battle mode, ready to race off and smash whatever got in his way, like it was New York all over again. Tony had talked his way out of his post traumatic moments, but Bruce only had the rising anger to fight. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he would walk into the rain and wait for the visitor to land, letting the cold drops soak him as an antidote to the pain.  


For Steve, it was the sound of peace. Every time Thor arrived, it was a moment to turn his back on SHIELD, to lay down his heavy duties and escape for however long the Demi-God had come to stay. Once they had gone back to Asgard with him, where time stood still with them and they no longer felt out of place because of what they had lived through, but for once, how small and mortal they were. It was the closest he had felt to normal since he had awoken from the ice nightmare.  


Whenever one heard the thunder, they immediately called or messaged the others. Sometimes Natasha took the longest to answer, but she always did. Steve thought one day she might not, the way that Clint had just simply disappeared. He only asked her once if she knew what happened. He knew better than to ever ask again.  


It had been Bruce’s job to tell them about Tony, since he’d been the one to find him. Almost 100 years old and still messing around with high voltage. It hadn’t mattered whether the heart or the brain went first. It was unspoken that he went with a phrase only he could muster up.  


Without Tony’s spark, the Avengers almost faltered. But as the decades passed, the three of them became tighter. They were siblings now, a single word could pass a world of information between them. Thor might be the reason to bring them back together now and then, but he was only an excuse, one they agreed on.  


Natasha thought perhaps she would be the next. The soldier serum in her veins had been diluted, a test dose, but enough to give her some of Steve’s strength and vitality. No one knew how long Bruce had, when the Other Guy seemed to keep his body in perfect physical shape of a 40 year old man, not his actual chronological age. He still ran Stark Industries with high precision, keeping SHIELD in the best of all the technologies. But occasionally he took a walk through the few wild areas left on Earth, to let the Other Guy have some breathing room.  


Steve had given up on second guessing the state of his eventual demise. He was at peace with the world, almost in a Zen state now. Bruce sometimes still called him in for a new kind of test or experiment, but the exact composition of that long ago serum remained lost. Perhaps, that was for the best.  


Thor was landing on his helipad now. The Demi-god actually had a line in his forehead. All these years and eventual age had finally touched him. His stride was still the confident march it had always been. He wore a smile, so this wasn’t about Loki. Or any of the other problems created by that problem child  


Steve relaxed and made his calls before standing up. It was easy to ignore the clock that said the date was 2148. It was time to be young again.

**Author's Note:**

> After watching the Avengers (yet again), I realized that of the six, there were only two who were truly mortal. Which left four to go on. Working on the theory that Thor is a god, the super soldier serum continues to work for Steve, that Natasha had a dose as is mentioned/hinted at in her comic titles, and well, the Other Guy always had Bruce's best interests at heart. So I kinda extrapolated from there in a ficlet.
> 
> And yes, I see Steve running SHIELD after Fury, not Natasha. Discuss in comments.


End file.
